Comment Meta

[amaresu]

Femslash Mini Meta fest was an utter fail this year. And I'm still not in a place where I could do it, so I purpose Comment Meta. And let's have it cover all things female and fannish. However you define those.

How it works

1. Post a meta topic in a top level comment. Use the subject line for the meta subject and expand as you want in the body of the comment. Or don't.

2. Repeat Step 1 for as many meta ideas as you have.

3. Comment on other meta topics.


It's kinda like a kink meme, only with meta. Feel free to browse the mini meta tag for ideas.

This is meant to be about as low pressure as it comes. Feel free to write on your own journal/Tumblr/blog and link back here. Respond with as little or as much as you want. This post will remain open indefinitely, so please track it if that makes things easier for you.

Comments

Re: Femslash Fandom Migration

[kmo]

haha, i didn't actually mean to demand your personal genealogy, just as a general guideline for what to ask people at IDF. :) but thank you for sharing all the same.

yeah, i definitely identify more as a femslash reader and writer than het-shipper or slasher, but i definitely enjoy all of those things depending on the fandom and the pairing. it would be hard for me to identify fandoms where i shipped femslash exclusively. like a lot of other people on the comm, i look for canons that feature interesting female characters- even if it's only one interesting female character. so yeah, identifying fandoms where femslash was an important or integral part of your fannish consumption/production but not the *only* part would be a better question for most people

i remember being into J/7 back in the day, but I also liked to read J/P, J/Q or J/anyone who wasn't Chakotay. but then i was into Harry Potter where i read lots of different types of things, including femslash. i like Doctor Who, but again, i'm pretty omnivorous in what i ship.

Re: changing fannish boundaries

[alias_sqbr]

I feel like I know tons of people who do absolutely everything, boyslash femslash transfic het poly threesomes and so on

This has been my experience too. But the people I hang out with aren't a random sampling, and I tend to go for fandoms and tropes and then seek out femslash. Hmmm...and I can actually think of some people I know who seem to only make femslash exclusively, but they share the "people I know who make femslash" category in my brain with lots of people who also create het, slash, and gen.

For me "femslash fandom" is just a social grouping of people with a shared interest in femslash, in the same way that Homestuck fandom is a social grouping of people with a shared interest in Homestuck (which not everyone who likes Homestuck will be into). It's thus not mutually exclusive with being into het/slash etc. But I only really got heavily into making and sharing fanworks online around 5-7 years ago, which probably influences my perspective.

Re: femslash production

[intransitive]

I wonder what the ratio of canon vs. non-canon fans tends to be, and if it's different for different fandoms or for femslash in particular? So if we want to engage the fans who need to be more invested in particular characters or canon sources in order to interact with them/it fannishly, are we trying to get them to see the appeal of the less canonically involved type of fannish interaction, or get them excited about the source canon, or a mixture of both? I think of fandom as my actual fandom, and read everything that even slightly appeals to me no matter where it's from, but I think I'm in the minority with that.

I think reccing would be a big help, and I would totally be on board for helping with that if you'd like. And I think it would be pretty easy to incorporate promoting source materials into recs. Eventually maybe we could get a sort of primer for femslash for particular fandoms? I'm thinking of the one cherie_morte did for SPN/SPN RPF at spnroundtable a few months ago, which recced particular works, but also sort of gave an overview of the fandom, characters, and resources. It really did a great job of the ship_manifesto type of info without being quite as involved, but also (I think) engaged people who might not have thought about femslash in that fandom before.

Re: Avengers: Natasha/Maria

[thingswithwings]

Hmmm, good question! I don't know of a list out there, but I would say generally that the first season is a lot more Tony and Steve heavy (and dude-heavy in general) and that the second season has way more ladies (Carol doesn't join the team till season two, for example). Unfortunately the season two plot arc is a giant mess, but, what can you do I guess. Offhand, without going back to watch them, I'd offer this list:

101/102 The Breakout 1 and 2 (Janet vs Maria tension!)
115 459 (Introducing Carol! With some lovely Janet/Carol)
116 Widow's Sting (Lots of Natasha, per the title, and also some great Mockingbird, another cool lady character)
120 The Casket of Ancient Winters (Janet in a bikini? I love this one idk)
221 Hail, HYDRA! (Natasha awesomeness, Maria-in-charge-of-SHIELD awesomeness)
125/126 The Fall of Asgard/A Day Unlike Any Other (Janet teams up with Sif and the Valkyries!)

201 The Private War of Doctor Doom (uneven, but has lovely Janet/Sue Storm interaction)
202 Alone Against AIM (lots of Maria, but she's in an action-romance movie with Tony in this one, so you might not like it. Also this is the only episode in EMH with Pepper in it, and it gives great Pepper.)
204 Welcome to the Kree Empire (YAY CAROL! A great Carol episode. This also introduces Abigail Brand, who is VERY shippable with Carol.)
207 Who Do You Trust? (More great Carol action, also Nick Fury assembles an all-lady team of Mockingbird, Black Widow, and Quake)
210 Prisoner of War (mostly about Steve, but gives really good Viper, who's a cool lady villain)
211/212 Infiltration/Secret Invasion (lots of great Maria and Carol in this, Natasha/Mockingbird/Quake also there.)
224/225 Operation Galactic Storm/Live Kree or Die (Carol and Janet, lots of big stuff going on)
226 Avengers Assemble (this one does the "we need a giant team of superheroes!" so all the ladies from the whole show are in this one pretty much, lots of cool teamups iirc).

If anyone can add to that list or wants to dispute some of it, please do! This is just as far as I can remember at the moment.

Re: Avengers: Natasha/Maria

[twtd]

This is pure awesomeness! I have a feeling I know what I'm going to be doing with my free time this week.

Re: F/F in anime/manga

[erinptah]

Ah! That makes more sense then. Carry on.

And thank you =D

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[erinptah]

Power femmes? Toppy femmes?

It's definitely how Haruka and Michiru operate, at least XD

Re: Lord of the Rings: Female Characters

[ilthit]

Lobelia's a fantastic character, I love sympathetic portrayals of her that don't sugarcoat OR dehumanize (dehobbitize?) her.

Sympathetic Arwen and Galadriel fic IS out there, I've seen it! I can't give out exact pointers right now, though. :/ It's been a while since I read LotR fic that wasn't something fresh that a friend wrote.

There's also a lot of potential with young Arwen fic. You never see kidfic with elves, do you? Or is it just because I haven't looked?

Re: Word Choices in Smut

[sarken]

The hate for moist baffles me! It's not really a word I'd use in sex scenes (not for reasons of unsexiness; it's just not a word I think of very often), but so many people seem to have such a strong reaction to it in any context, but I'm just like, "Cake! Moist cake! Moist is a great word!"

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[havocthecat]

I don't know if there's a name for it either, but I love it as a trope. I quite identify with it, honestly.

Re: The women of White Collar squee fest

[havocthecat]

Ooh, awesome! So much good reading material, thanks.

Re: In defense of Bella Swan

[amaresu]

One of the most interesting takes on Bella that I've read is one of her as a person with an undiagnosed disability. As clumsy as she is, she's clearly got something going on there and the idea was that she's spent her entire life accidentally hurting herself and that's why becoming a vampire is so appealing to her.

The girl, as written, can barely get through the day without some fun and exciting new bruises. (And realistically broken bones with really stupid stories behind them.) The appeal of becoming a creature like the Cullen's is obvious.

I like this theory.

Re: femslash production

[amaresu]

There was a femslash big bang at one point, but that seems to have disappeared. I know there's the yearly femslash exchange, but I usually have to push outside my comfort zone in regards to fandoms in order to participate and last year I defaulted.

ladiesbigbang seemed to be going good for a bit, but then it just kinda died. I'd like to see something along those lines resurrected. I liked that you could do anything your heart desired for a bang. But maybe combined with the way ante_up_losers runs in that people create teams? So rather than working in a void you have a group of people working together and making fun projects.

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[amaresu]

I'm terribly intrigued about how femslash works in A/B/O verses. I haven't been apart of the big slash fandoms in years so the prevalence of this trope kinda leaves me baffled and confused, but at the same time wanting to see how it works with different types of pairing. I'm not widely read on the trope, but there doesn't seem to be much mention of women at all, let alone as part of the central pairing. It'd be interesting to see how a femslash pairing could be applied.



I also deeply love Extreme Competence. Which is possibly why I love St. Trinian's and Warehouse 13 so much as they're filled with people who are Extremely Competent. They get things done (in their chosen fields). I feel like it's a trope that's hard to do with female characters in general though as the cries of Mary Sue are always coming closer.

Re: femslash production

[tellitslant]

LJ has a het_recs comm - I would love a femslash_recs comm. Because let's face it, I think as femslashers we are pretty damn multifannish. Speaking personally, I read femslash in fandoms I don't even watch (most of my fannishness lately is tv/movie), so it would be great to have those pre-screened for me by someone who is enthusiastic about the source. And then I might get around to doing my Warehouse 13 recs! :P

Re: changing fannish boundaries

[amaresu]

I have the same general feels of things. For so long you had to be on the special mailing lists to even read the slash. I'm not sure I had any idea of where to go for femslash, but I know I ran across some random stuff for Dana Scully on Gossamer at one point. But, it was very easy on mailing lists to dictate what was and was not allowed just because of how big they could get and how you always had to be aware that this was all going into someone's inbox. Which meant specialized lists of course.

I don't know if it makes sense, but it feels like the fall of the big pan-fandom fandoms with nothing to take their place has contributed to multishipping in some ways. It's hard to find a fandom that you just know everyone is in some way familiar with these days. I'm not sure I'm phrasing this right. But I feel like there's been a change in how people flock to fandoms. I don't know.

Re: changing fannish boundaries

[amaresu]

It's a good model of fandom.

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[tellitslant]

Haha, this is the second time in a week that W13 undercover marrieds has come up, so it is definitely on my plate.

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[tellitslant]

Mrrr! I'm dying to be one of the Cool Kids who gets podfic'd, so now I'm really wracking my brain for inspirations. :P

Re: femslash production

[amaresu]

There is ff_showcase which has gone through several attempts to spark interest. With little success.

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[twtd]

I would read all of the A/B/O femslash. I tried to prompt for it at the femslash kinkmeme last year but no one took the bait. There's a small amount of it on AO3, but nowhere near as much as there should be.

Also, soul bonding and amtdi and forced marriages and basically I would read all of the femslashy trope fic. All of it.

Re: Grammar, Critique, Betas

[tellitslant]

Ugh, yes, all of this. I've been in fandom for more than fifteen years, and I think this is the most annoying change I've seen. I WANT to know what I've done wrong - but I feel like that kind of crit is no longer publicly welcomed by almost anyone else. It holds me up on stuff like writing recs - do I mntion that this is rec'd reservedly because the commas got on my nerves but it was still good enough to pass on? Or is that Rude? *tears out hair*

I think the fact that fandom is expanding so fast, and on so many different platforms, means that we have a lot more people who don't care about writing as a craft and just want to get their fabulous idea out there. I just don't understand that,t hough. Don't these hypothetical impatient writers want to actually connect? Argh!

Commas are definitely the big one for me. Others that I tend to backbutton from of late are epithets (the blonde, the brunette, the officer, the agent, the taller woman, the shorter woman - dear god how many women are there!), said-bookisms (she spat, she hissed, she muttered, she growled, she whispered, she huffed), and rapid POV change. I can excuse some of those, but the POV change really got me.

I am lucky to have a good friend who makes my fics much, much better, but I miss the days when reviews included "Hey, here's a typo, and btw I love what you think about character X's motivation because..."!

Re: Lord of the Rings: Female Characters

[stranger]

I think you're right, that the "problem" with Arwen and Galadriel is that they're not much fleshed out on the page, and don't have the usual hooks for fannish interest. Even though monarchs and magic-users are staple characters, the biggest fanfic subjects aren't really ruling or how magic works, but rather action and sex. While Galadriel masterminded a war, she didn't lead the troops. I suppose it's hard to make a general staff meeting look or feel exciting the way a battlefield does. Arwen produced one of the few Elven artifacts that incorporates magic (and if I were braver, I'd want to write about weaving magic into a banner and how Arwen knew it would tip the balance for Aragorn, thus fulfilling her decades of ambition to make him king), but she didn't carry it herself. She shaped the Fourth Age, herself and Aragorn and her descendants.

It takes a lot of development to make either of them a rounded character, and sadly, neither shows any sense of humor, although that doesn't mean they couldn't have it! So, it's hard work to put them into a context and then make them dominate it. Arwen, at least, has an epic love affair crossing racial boundaries -- there's some conflict for a writer to work with.

Eowyn has more substance, thank goodness, and I've seen at least one story that points out she shouldn't be the only shield-maid in Rohan. Surely other daughters of the warrior class (or of Rohan) learned sword-play and horsemanship, and defended their holdings while the men were at war. Half the problem there, and in Tolkien overall, is simply envisioning the female half of the population that has to be there between the lines.

Re: changing fannish boundaries

[sarken]

JetC was the first thing I thought of, too! The nature of mailing lists meant you kind of had to stay on a narrow topic, so even if there were m/m or f/f fans on the list, it was hard to know, especially since some J/C lists banned even background use of same-sex pairings. But once you get to LJ, everyone is free to talk about all of their interests, and if you find out that there are slash fans among your friends, then maybe you get into it, too, or, if it's not your cup of tea, you at least get to see that there's not really a clear split like "us het shippers" and "those weird slashers," and you think twice about defining yourself and your fellows fans in those terms.

...not that it's always a bad thing to define yourself in such ways, of course! Like thingswithwings, I don't really think of myself as a part of something called "femslash fandom," but considering the relatively small number of femslash fanworks, I can definitely see the appeal of thinking of oneself as a femslash fan and seeking out femslash spaces where other people share your general interests and can kind of make up for the support you don't necessarily get in your specific show/book/movie/etc fandom. It's just that I write so much het and gen and m/m and threesomes and so on it seems a bit... misleading or disingenuous to label myself a femslash fan.

(Also, hi, cantarina! I am nosy and saw on AO3 that you used AKOT as a pseud for your Voyager work -- I think we might have known each other. I was SaRa. Which is not exactly a memorable name considering JetC was more than a decade ago, so please don't feel bad if it doesn't jog any memories. ;))

Re: femslash production

[sarken]

A ship_manifesto thing would be fun! I was going to suggest doing it as a one-off event in an existing community instead, but, actually, yeah, a separate community would probably be better, since there wouldn't be a time limit (that is, if a really femslashy show starts in the fall, it's not like "too bad, the event is over, you have to find somewhere else to post your pic spam").

I tend to be a monofannish multishipper, so I probably wouldn't pick up a new canon, but I'd also be among those happy to write about one or more of my favorite femslash ships if someone wanted to run such a community.